


clementine

by Willshebemina



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Fruit, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, sharing fruit is a love language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 19:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21258203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willshebemina/pseuds/Willshebemina
Summary: "... to eat a fruit is to know its meaning." - Fernando Pessoa,a little larger than the entire universethe life and future of Bucky Barnes, as told through clementines.





	clementine

**Author's Note:**

> i'm....,,, soft. and never expected to write something for the mcu, but here we are

There is not a lot that is said of the clementine, though there’s a lot that can be said. The presence of one invokes silence, busy as you are with peeling it, busy as you are eating it, busy as you are taking it apart slice by slice. Busy as you are handing over a slice to someone you love with your sticky fingers, carefully trying to avoid theirs, though it’s a wasted effort, valiant as it is. Few words were spoken in the presence of the clementine, instead replaced by ripping of the bright orange skin, of the spurt of juices when your canine pierced a slice. Replaced by muffled grunts of concentration such important work warranted, by snorts of laughter at the camaraderie invoked by sharing of a clementine.

Bucky took great care in the peeling and sharing of clementines. He had watched his mother handle fruit since before he could remember, observed the easy, quick and practiced way she would take any fruit apart, and smile so kindly when giving it to him and his sisters. Every fruit was different, there was a language to every kind, the peeling and coring of apples, the halving and squeezing of lemons, and the careful quartering of the pomegranate for Rosh Hashanah, lowered in cold water and carefully, carefully pulled apart.

But Bucky especially loved the clementine, even if it wasn’t as common or a versatile as an apple, even if it wasn’t as holy and rare and pretty as the pomegranate. He didn’t bother to think about why, to him it just was. It was so perfectly shaped, as if it was made just for him to hold in his small hand, stick it in the pocket of his coat for later, toss up and down like a ball before the temptation became too much and he sat down to eat it. An orange was too much for a little kid like him, and the clementine just enough.

Steve was terrible at peeling clementines. Not that he did a shoddy job of it, he did it _too_ carefully. For him it was a slow, painstaking process where he tried to make it all come off in one piece, and would try to take all the white off every single slice too. The first time Bucky had seen him do it, he watched it the whole time, even forgoing peeling his own clementine in the meanwhile, too busy staring at those small, thin, feminine and pink pale fingers treat the clementine with more perfectionism than he did his actual art. Bucky had watched in equal amounts horror, amusement and awe at his weird new friend and decided that at least, to but some sort of good spin to it, Steve was treating a clementine with the respect it deserved.

Second time and all other times, Bucky had said ”Hey, gimme that,” and taking it, ignoring the protests, to peel it for Steve before handing it back and getting to work on peeling his own. He did this less and less, as it more and more became a ritual of them sharing them all. It was a simple enough thing, finding a good place to sit down, one of them puling the fruit from their pocket and Bucky peeling and parting the contents, one slice for Steve, one for Bucky, one for Steve, one for Bucky, and the whole thing for them both. Same with the second clementine, Bucky handling the whole affair, Steve accepting the slices with a thanks or just his lopsided smile, sometimes gap toothed when one of his milk teeth had fallen out and he wasn’t self conscious enough to hide that. He couldn’t ever keep his mouth shut — not for fighting, and especially not for smiling.

It was one of their rarer rituals, but well set and structured with the power of habit, in season along with the fruit itself. It would become rarer and rarer, something that might have made them forget the ritual of it, or leave the habits behind. Instead it made it more meaningful; Bucky would, when he could get his hand on a clementine, hand the slice over to a coughing, feverish Steve and feel some pride and control that at least in this, he could provide. At least in this, he could take care of Steve.

If it was rare during the depression, it was rarer during the war. They only got their hands on clementines once, in some time Bucky didn’t know the name of even then and definitely not later. Peaceful moments of quiet were also rarer than they had ever been, but still he found the power to force Steve to sit his damn ass down and take a rest for once, and Bucky didn’t let the fury or tragedy of their circumstance and what they had lived through so far affect his handling of the clementine. Steve was bigger than him now, could take care of himself now, didn’t _need_ Bucky the way Bucky needed him. Still he sat still, quiet, watching and waiting as Bucky pressed his nails down into the bright skin that stuck out like a sore thumb in grey of their camp, a sun through storm clouds, and he took the offered slice with his open mouthed smile, still showing off those teeth, and even with his deeper voice the way he said his thanks was still the same. They’d both changed too much, too fast, but still with this, Bucky had control. There was at least one way he could still take care of his Steve.

Then there was a whole seventy or so years better left unmentioned, but safe to say nobody was peeling any damn clementines. Someone could have stuck a clementine in the soldier’s hand and he wouldn’t know what to do with it. The soldier only knew how to kill, he couldn’t understand the importance of sharing fruit with someone he-

Then he was back to himself, a bit. Not fully, he never would be fully back again. He wrote what he remembered, kept careful note of everything that invoked the spirit of that five foot four asthmatic bag of reckless ideas that was forever lost to him. One day at the market place he saw a whole crate of clementines and didn’t as much remember as he thought ”who’s been peeling Stevie’s clementines for him?”.

He left that out of the notebook. He averted his eyes from every clementine he came across after that. What was the point, if he only got one for himself? What was the point if he couldn’t share it? He avoided clementines, grapes, oranges, pomegranates, sticking to simpler fruits not meant to be shared. He wouldn’t be taking care of anyone else again.

Then Steve was back in his life like a force of nature, and those days felt longer than the time spent on the run. He was living again, feeling more like the Bucky that had fought before Steve’s side. He didn’t think of clementines at all, they didn’t have time for more than one conversation that made them smile like it was the Great Depression again, before they almost died again, before he went on ice again. Any hope of ever having a time of peace was lost again, any hope Bucky ever had of taking care of Steve again was lost again. Lost, like he was, and it remained lost for years Steve lived through, and Bucky didn’t.

Then they were both back, and something in him still said that he would never peel a clementine for Steve again.

The day after Steve left the present for the past neither of them could ever actually return to, Bucky tried to peel a clementine. He had bought it on impulse from a fruit stand while taking a walk and hadn’t been aware of what he was doing before he held it in his hands. He settled down on a bench near their current compound, alone save for the colorful leaves falling around him and the crow watching him from the tree straight across.

Good thing, he realised then, that he hadn’t tried taking care of Steve again. As it turned out, trying to peel a clementine when only one of your hands had fingernails was a lot harder than you could believe.

Not that it had to be. In theory, he just had to hold it with his left and start peeling with his right. In practice, he tried to sink both hands into the skin and when he found that he couldn’t he swore, and before he could switch tactics, there was a voice saying ”Hey, gimme that.”

Bucky’s fingers went so slack with shock that Sam easily took the fruit from his hands before sitting down next to him. Knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder, alone and in a silence that started out shocked from Bucky’s point but soon turned peaceful as he realised what Sam was doing. He did it quicker than Bucky had ever managed but still with care, the kind of ease that spoke of more practice than Bucky had probably ever had. Before long, he said ”here,” and held out the first slice, fingers not even sticky yet, like some kind of miracle worker.

And the first real smile in what felt like a lifetime came as easily to Bucky as breathing, and he took it with the thanks a good boy like the one his ma had raised would. The taste was almost overwhelmingly sweet, more powerful than he could remember as the juice burst from the pierced skin. He hadn’t even swallowed the first piece before Sam handed him another, which he took with just a smile this time. Sam smiled back, dimpled and pleased in a way Bucky could recognise from himself eighty years ago. And so they sat in peaceful silence, sharing a clementine, and Bucky let himself be taken care of.

**Author's Note:**

> the most painful part about this was having to recall anything that's happened in the mcu past ca:ws


End file.
